Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to identifying and presenting content to a user in response to a search action, and, more specifically, to combining global preference and metacontent information with individualized preference information gathered by a user device.
Description of Related Art
On-device information retrieval systems permit a user to search, browse or shuffle through items located in databases on and off of the device. For example, a cache of items may be stored on the device, with more items stored in databases in various servers on the Internet/network, to which the device is connected. The device may be, for example, a phone, personal music device (e.g., iPod, mp3 players), a set top box, a mapping or GPS device, a gaming device or even a personal computer.
Examples of items located in databases resident on the device include, but are not limited to, contact information, music related items (songs, artists, albums, playlists), videos, images, DVR'd programs, local region-specific maps and local listings, applications from appstores of various kinds, bookmarks of browsers, etc. With the growth in volatile and especially non-volatile memory on devices, local databases are increasing in size as well as diversity.
On one hand, meaningful portions of otherwise large databases, usually stored only in the network, may be explicitly carved out by a service provider and cached on the device itself, in order to facilitate mission critical information retrieval, even in the face of data network failures. For instance, the entire Boston region maps/directions database and local listings of a Boston based subscriber may be cached on his/her device (phone or GPS) so that a minimal set of search queries work even when the data network is congested or unavailable. On the other hand, the on-device non-volatile memory is also a natural choice to store the databases pertaining to the user's music collection (from a music store or from a CD or MP3 collection), applications downloaded from an application store, bookmarks of the device browser being used by the user, contact information being used in communication applications used by a device-user, TV programs or other videos DVR'd, downloaded or purchased by the user, images or photos that are on the device and so on.
Examples of items from databases resident on network-based servers that can possibly be returned in response to search, browse or shuffle queries originating in on-device information retrieval systems include, but are not limited to, contact information and listings of businesses, map and listings databases, videos, songs, album and artist listings, applications databases, images and photos, and indeed arbitrary collections of items, textual or multimedia, including web-pages that can be presented to the user of the device. There can be a multiplicity of servers in the Internet or network connected to the device which may serve requests and send back items of various types back to the device.
There are two distinct possibilities pertaining to the nature of the results presented in response to search browse, or shuffle queries from such on-device information retrieval systems. In the first possibility, the results are restricted to items from databases resident on the device. In the second possibility, the results are a mix of items, some from databases resident on the device and some from databases requested on a multiplicity of servers in the Internet or network to which the device is connected. A boundary case of this scenario, for example in a search operation, is when there are no local results for a user input, and the results are all from the network. One example of the boundary case of this scenario for a browse operation is when the entire contents or part of the browse hierarchy itself comes from the network.